Loudness War

Sorry was away for a few days and did not imagine this thread would have produced such a large response.

Firstly - Elizabeth - "I assume you are complaining about the CD remastering and just new mastering of ROCK music."
??
Don't think so - Naxos are just as guilty of this errant production as Warner Bros.

Secondly - I see many threads around suggesting 2 vrms output for cd players/DACs is too much for preamps & poweramps, but surely we must look at the volume of the source of the source!

Mapman - I will purchase Revival to do some testing! More thoughts on this soon....will look forward to more opinions on what is surely a part of the larger problem of audio component matching!

The SACD of Thriller is just that....thrilling. If you've got a SACD player it's a must have.

RE Thriller
Given the time frame of it's release and the popularity of it's artist then, recording quality could have been way off the mark and pretty poor actually, and album sales would still have sky rocketed.

I don't recall hearing one person then say, "I bought the record or disc because of the quality of the production."

Just like Elvis and the Beatles before MJ, record sales simply weren't based on the quality of the sound... but merely the 'sound' or style if you will, of the recording artist.

Still today I'll buy the stuff I like the sound of on the radio or that I've heard online in a disc, only to find out it is lacking when played back on my main system. So it gets played less or played on a lesser system.

the motivation for the purchase remains the same... by and large I've deemed it popular enough or found it appealing enough to purchase. Seldom if ever am I able to preview a prospective disc on my main rig.

Quality quite often is merely an afterthought or anomoly in pop & rock. The overwhelming majority of that audience simply wants loud... not quality. 95% of the time, when at those folks homes they'll show off their new CD by turning on & up the system just that fast... to paint peeling levels and then say, "How do you like that? Sounds great doesn't it?" .

Normally it doesn't. When they come to my home the first time, everyone of them will say turn it up even if I'm already in the low to mid 90 dbs. I'll tell 'em I can't, it trips the breakers.

I'm pretty sure now, most of my pop and rock oriented friends are almost deaf. In fact some very nearly are.

Blindjim,

I think what you say is valid, but whose to say that overall quality had nothing to do with the products unique success? Quality is almost always a part of any success story. Jackson seemed like a stickler for what he thought important, and did those things better than anyone else perhaps in his prime.

Actually excessive compulsive might be a more accurate term. For better or for worse. The "over the top" sound quality of his recordings (compared to the norm) seem to be in line with his lifestyle in general.

I'm with Mapman on this. To me Thriller would have been successful without the high quality production, the question is would it have been the most successful album in the history of music if it sounded like most of the crap we get to day in pop/rock?